The Social Policy Digest went online in the summer of 2003. This means that the Digest, which used to be printed as part of the Journal of Social Policy, is now only available via the web.

The Digest provides a summary of current policy developments and research findings across the whole range of social policy fields, such as poverty and social security, education, health, housing, social services and the labour market. Cross-cutting subject areas include children and the family, disability, gender, mental health, old age, race/ethnicity and young people. There are also separate groupings for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Going online has allowed a range of improvements to the Digest. It now carries nearly three times the number of entries each month as before, and for each entry there are hyperlinks to key source documents. Entries go back as far as May 2002. By the end of 2006 there were over 15,000 entries in total on the site.

Online access to the Digest is available to all Journal of Social Policy subscribers– both institutional and individual. If you are part of a subscribing institution, such as a university library, access will normally be provided automatically through its online journals system. Many institutions also allow you to access their system from home, for example through a virtual personal network. To find the Digest, follow the link which appears on the Journal of Social Policy webpage at www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_JSP.

You can also access the Digest quite independently if you are an individual subscriber. In 2005 you should have received a letter from the publishers, Cambridge University Press, explaining the access procedure. It involves first going to www.journals.cambridge.org, and then registering and/or logging in using your individual subscription number. A copy of the letter can be found at http://www.frankenstein.dsl.pipex.com/Digest_access_procedure.pdf.

We hope you will visit the online Digest, and that you find it useful. We welcome feedback via the address on the Digest homepage.